


Snow and Second Chances

by ColdFront



Category: citrus - サブロウタ | citrus - Saburouta
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, oddly fluffy for me, protective matsuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:02:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22045294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColdFront/pseuds/ColdFront
Summary: After months of married life, Mei still can't get over the stepsister she left behind.
Relationships: Aihara Mei/Aihara Yuzu
Comments: 1
Kudos: 64





	Snow and Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> I rewatched Citrus with my girlfriend recently and it put me in a weirdly fluffy mood.

Mei returns home to find the house empty. Mei's secretly relieved - for all they have to play at being a perfect loving couple around the socialites and professors and business leaders, the reality is that she and Hisashi barely know each other, and their interactions have always been brief, halting. Hisashi tries, though, and Mei appreciates it. He respects her space, and Mei knows very well that Hisashi's in the same position as she is.

Family comes first, after all.

She walks to her bedroom, not bothering to turn on the light. The room is enormous, but almost bare. Mei strips in the dark, folds her dress, and places it on the dresser by feel. She crawls into bed, and before she pulls up the covers, she turns on her phone for a split second. Yuzu smiles back at her from a festival over a year ago, a half-eaten taiyaki in her hands. "I love you," Mei whispers, and turns the screen off.

For all Mei knows, Yuzu's moved on. Maybe she finally ended up with Harumi, or found a boyfriend. A lot can change in ten months apart. For Mei, though, Yuzu is always there - something solid and real, a smile far more genuine than the ones Mei sees at the cocktail parties and dinner meetings like the one tonight. Every frigid bow or handshake makes Mei miss Yuzu's embrace a little more.

She'll probably never see Yuzu again. She clings to that, too, because it takes away the ambiguity; _Yuzu is gone and that's never going to change_ is easier to deal with than _I chose this path and I keep choosing it every moment I stay here._

The snow falls harder outside, and Mei shivers, alone beneath the covers.

* * *

Another day.

Hisashi's home this time, reading the morning's Nikkei in the pale winter sunlight over a piece of toast. He smiles absently at her for a moment, then turns back to his paper.

"You know," he says quietly, his mind still half elsewhere, "the Ashikaga Foundation is having their annual Christmas mixer tonight. I thought you might like to go."

"Why would I want to go to that?" Mei asks, unblinking.

"They donated ten million yen to the Academy's scholarship fund last year." Hisashi shrugs. "Obviously you don't have to if you don't want to."

"I'll think about it." Mei walks past him, out the door to the garage, and leaves her beloved husband behind.

"Where are you going?" he calls after her as she opens the door, and she pauses on the threshold.

"Out." _Because I can't stay here. Because if I do, I'll forget I ever had anything else. And most of all, because you aren't her._

She suspects he's as relieved as she is that the conversation is over.

* * *

Hisashi keeps a driver on the payroll, but on days like this, when her life is closing in around her, Mei prefers to take the wheel herself. The car is big, quiet, a very conservative Japanese model with a phoenix engraved on the hood, but she doesn't particularly care; she'd walk if her new home was closer to town. She's made this drive before - the Academy, then a cafe where once upon a time she ate crepes with her sister. For a moment, as she passes by the cafe, Mei can see herself and Yuzu together within, happy, radiant against the blowing snow outside - but she blinks and the two girls are gone, and the establishment is almost empty. She continues on, taking the wide, empty road to her former home.

The building gleams in the cold light of the winter morning - just as it always does. She glances up to her old apartment, thinking maybe she'll catch a glimpse of her adopted mother, or perhaps of Yuzu. Neither of them was at her wedding; her mother sent a card. Mei got a letter from Yuzu a few weeks later asking to see her, but she never responded. It was simpler to cauterize the wound, and let her sister move on. Mei told herself at the time that she would move on the same way, that her life was gone and not coming back, and yet here she is, haunting the places that remind her of her family.

She changes lane to head home, and her vision blurs with tears.

_A shrine, consecrated to the gods._

_Yuzu's face, desperate and hurting and hopeful._

Mei shakes her head, and tries to focus.

She thinks of Hisashi, and of Yuzu, and takes the next turn off the road.

* * *

The elevator ride up is one of the longest of Yuzu's life, but she's strangely calm, like she's seeing herself through someone else's eyes. She watches herself walk down the hallway, and notes with detached interest that she's raising a finger to press the buzzer. The door opens a moment later, and Mei comes face to face with Yuzu's - and her own - mother, Ume Aihara, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Mei?" she whispers. "Are you... are you coming back home?"

"Mother..." Mei tries to tell this woman who promised to always take care of her that no, she's just passing through, she has a life, a place, a plan, but the words don't come. She just stands there, a perplexed expression on her face, as her mother throws her arms around her and hugs her tightly. The hug breaks after a moment, though, and her mother takes her hand and pulls her into the apartment.

Yuzu stares back at her as she walks in, mouth agape, with fragments of a glass and a puddle of juice at her feet. Next to her is Matsuri Mizusawa, whose face is anything but blank - somewhere between disgusted and homicidal, actually. "What are _you_ doing here?" she spits, and before Mei can react, Matsuri has closed the distance between them and slapped her, hard. "How dare you come back here? Do you have any idea what my Yuzu has been through for you?"

Mei almost reaches for her armor, some pithy and frigid reply with just the right hint of condescension, but as Yuzu's tears start to flow Mei finds herself saying something else entirely. "No, I- I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"You didn't mean WHAT? To go get married? To go be some guy's trophy wife and leave behind my best friend and the rest of your family?" Matsuri's clearly tensing for another slap, and Mei braces for it.

The hit never comes, though. Yuzu steps forward, puts a hand on Matsuri's shoulder without a word, and stares into Mei's eyes. "Why are you here?" she asks, sounding so broken that Mei wishes she could take back everything about the last ten months.

"I wanted to see you," Mei replies, and turns to her mother. "And you. I... regret a lot of things."

"Oh, you will," Matsuri growls, but Yuzu turns to her and shakes her head.

"Matsuri... I think I need to talk with my sister," Yuzu says.

* * *

"You vanished," Yuzu says softly, sitting fornly on the bed. "I didn't know if you were ever coming home."

"I'm sorry. I wanted to leave you a clean break. I wanted to let you move on and stop bothering you." Mei laughs, a sound without a drop of humor in it, and goes back to staring out the window at the thick winter sky outside. "I clearly failed across the board."

Yuzu reaches out and takes Mei's hand, and pulls her to the spot next to her on the bed. "Come home. Mom needs you. You know that, right?"

"And what about you?"

"I need you too. I've needed you as long as I've known you." Yuzu's hands are shaking, and she looks away. "But when has that ever made a difference?"

"I have a life, Onee-chan," Mei says. "Obligations. Alliances. You understand that, right? It's for my family."

"And we're not your family?" Yuzu bites out. "Why did you come back here? Do you know what you're doing to Mom? Maybe Matsuri was right about you."

"I..." Mei takes a deep breath. "I'm glad Matsuri is looking out for you the way she is." There's more she doesn't say, of course - but it's true. Mei doesn't have to like Matsuri to acknowledge that she's clearly taken care of Yuzu when Mei herself has been out in the world, checking all the boxes she's supposed to. It brings her to another question, though. "Yuzu, are you and Matsuri...?"

"No," Yuzu says flatly, and Mei hates herself for how her heart lifts at that. "I went on a date with her once or twice, but... she wasn't you." Yuzu tenses up, and her lip trembles. "What about you? What about your husband?"

"There's nothing there," Mei replies, and puts an arm around Yuzu's shoulders. She'd do anything to take the last ten months back, but she can't - all she can do is try to make it right, one step at a time. "He's not a bad person, but he doesn't love me any more than I love him. He has to deal with expectations too."

"So where does that leave you, Mei? And us?" Yuzu nuzzles against Mei, and everything Mei lost - her home, her family, her beloved - rips through her at once. She's crying before she even realizes it, and then Yuzu's lips press against hers; Mei sees her own need and loneliness reflected in the other girl's eyes, and she realizes she can't leave this behind. She runs her fingers through Yuzu's hair, and loses herself - or maybe finds herself - in the feel of her stepsister's lips and the warmth of Yuzu's body against her own.

It doesn't last forever, of course. Yuzu's blushing when they finally break apart. "S-sorry," she mumbles, trying to blink away her tears.

"Don't be. I love you, Yuzu. I'm sorry I left you." Mei wraps both arms around Yuzu, and holds her tight.

"So... what now?" Yuzu asks, her voice shaking.

"Now, I talk to Hisashi. I'm done playing games." Mei's hand finds Yuzu's, and she squeezes it. "Now we find a way forward. Together."

* * *

"You know, if you ever hurt her again, I'll make sure you pay for it," Matsuri says conversationally, with a pleasant smile. "As far as I'm concerned, you're out of chances."

"If I ever hurt her again, I'll hold you to that. And... thank you for always taking care of her." Mei glances over at Yuzu, who's talking animatedly with her mother while they make Christmas desserts together. "You know it's still going to be complicated for a while, I hope?"

"Sure. I know you have to figure out how to get out of your loveless marriage properly so you can go back to sleeping with my Yuzu-chan. Your sister. You're a perv, Mei."

"We never-" Mei stops there. It's not a conversation she particularly feels like having with Matsuri right now anyway.

"I know," Matsuri says, and giggles. "You're too easy. Anyway, Yuzu misses you. But if you ever decide to abandon her again, it won't be much fun for you."

"I won't. Never again. Count on it."


End file.
